Natural Resources Support Human Activity
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¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦ § KEY CONCEPT Natural resources support human activity. BEFORE, you learned NOW, you will learn • Earth’s distant past is revealed •What makes a natural resource in rocks and fossils renewable or nonrenewable • Layers of sedimentary rock • About benefits and costs of show relative ages using fossil fuels • Living things have inhabited • How people use natural Earth for over 3 billion years resources in modern life VOCABULARY TH INK ABOUT natural resource p. 147 What resources do you renewable resource p. 148 nonrenewable need the most? resource p. 148 Think about all the products you fossil fuel p. 150 use at school and at home—clothing, books, video games, CDs, backpacks, and other items. Which ones do you use the most often? What materials are these prod- ucts made of? Plastic? Cloth? Metal? What would you lose if one of these materials, such as plastic, vanished from Earth overnight? Natural resources provide materials and energy. VOCABULARY For thousands of years, people have used natural resources to make Use a four-square diagram tools, build cities, heat their homes, and in general make their lives more for the term natural resource in your notebook. comfortable. A natural resource is any energy source, organism, or substance found in nature that people use. The four parts of the Earth system—atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere—provide all the resources needed to sustain human life. The atmosphere, for instance, provides the air you breathe and the rain that helps living things grow. The hydrosphere contains all of Earth’s waters in rivers, lakes, oceans, and underground. The bio- sphere and the geosphere are sources of food, fuel, clothing, and shelter. Chapter 5: Natural Resources 147 AB ¡ ¢ £ ¨ ¥ ¦ § However, people also know that there are costs as well as benefits in NOTE TAKING using natural resources. For example, burning coal produces heat but A content frame can help also releases smoke that pollutes the air. When forests are cut down, the you take notes about the costs and benefits of using soil beneath is exposed to the air. Wind and rain can strip away valuable natural resources. topsoil, making it harder for new trees to grow. The soil can choke streams and rivers and kill fish and other animals living in the waters. As you can see, using resources from one part of Earth’s system affects all the other parts. People are also concerned about saving natural resources. Some resources, such as the water in a river or the wind used to turn a windmill, are constantly being replaced. But others, such as oil, take millions of years to form. If these resources are used faster than they are replaced, they will run out. Today people are more aware of which resources are renewable and which are nonrenewable. check your reading Summarize the costs and benefits of using natural resources. Renewable Resources The charts on page 149 list some of the most common resources people use in modern life. As you might have guessed, sunlight, wind, water, and trees and other plants are renewable. Arenewable resource is a natural resource that can be replaced in nature at about the same rate it is used. For example, a lumber company might plant a new tree for each mature tree it cuts down. Over time, the forest will continue to have the same number of trees. However, if the trees are cut down faster than they can be replaced, even a renewable resource will run out. Nonrenewable Resources A nonrenewable resource is a natural resource that exists in a fixed amount or that is used up faster than it can be replaced in nature. This means the supply of any nonrenewable resource is limited. In general, all resources produced by geologic forces—coal, natural gas, oil, uranium—are nonrenewable. These resources form over millions of years. Today people are using coal, oil, and natural gas much faster than they are forming in nature. As a result, these resources are becoming more scarce and expensive. Many countries realize that they must conserve their nonrenewable resources. Some, like the United States, are developing alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind energy. check your reading Compare and contrast renewable and nonrenewable resources. AB 148 Unit: The Changing Earth ¡ ¢ £ © ¥ ¦ § Natural Resources Natural resources can be classified as renewable and nonrenewable resources. Renewable Resources Resource Common Uses Sunlight power for solar cells and bat- teries, heating of homes and businesses, and generating electricity Wind power to move windmills that pump water, grind grain, and generate electricity Water power to generate electricity, transportation with boats and ships, drinking and washing Trees and materials for furniture, other plants clothing, fuel, dyes, medicines, paper, cardboard, and generating electricity Animal waste material for fuels Nonrenewable Resources Resource Common Uses Coal fuel to generate electricity, chemicals for medicines and consumer products Oil fuel for cars, airplanes, and trucks; fuel for heating and generating electricity; chemicals for plastics, syn- thetic fabrics, medicines, grease, and wax Natural gas fuel for heating, cooking, and generating electricity Uranium fuel to generate electricity Minerals and rocks materials for coins, jewelry, building, computer chips, lasers, household products, paint, and dyes Read the common uses of each resource. Which of these resources are used to generate electricity? Chapter 5: Natural Resources 149 AB ¡ ¢ £ ¥ ¦ § Fossil fuels supply most of society’s energy. Every time you turn on the air conditioner, a computer, or a microwave oven, you use energy from fossil fuels. Millions of people depend on these fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—for electricity, heat, and fuel. A fossil fuel is a nonrenewable energy source formed from ancient plants and animals buried in Earth’s crust for millions of years. The energy in such a fuel represents a form of stored sunlight, since ancient organisms depended on the sun. The buried organisms form layers at the bottom of oceans, ponds, and swamps. Over a long time, this material is compressed and pushed deeper into Earth’s crust. High heat and pressure change it chemically into coal, oil, and natural gas. check your reading Explain how fossil fuels are formed from ancient organisms. Fossil Fuel Power Station U.S. Energy Sources Oil 41% Coal 25% Natural gas 20% Other 14% Smoke stack: Byproducts of burning fuel are released into the air. Source: U.S. Department of Energy, 2000 Boiler: Heat from burning Turbine: Steam Generator: Turbines fossil fuels boils the water from the boiler drive generators to to produce steam. turns the turbines produce electricity. Power Lines Fossil fuel source Water is used to cool the machinery. Condenser: Steam condenses into water, which How does burning fossil fuels help to produce electricity? will return to the boiler. AB 150 Unit: The Changing Earth ¡ ¢ £ ¥ ¦ § Fossil fuels burn easily and produce a lot of heat. They are used to run most of the power plants that generate electricity. As shown in the diagram on page 150, heat from a burning fuel is used to change water reading tip into steam. The steam turns a turbine. The turbine drives a generator Turbine is based on to produce electricity, which is carried through power lines to towns the Latin turbo, which means “spinning top.” and cities. Electricity runs nearly everything in modern life, from giant Generator is based on the factories to the smallest light in your home. Latin gener are,- which means “to produce.” But these resources also harm the environment. Burning fossil fuels produces excess carbon dioxide, harmful acids, and other forms of pollution. Most of this pollution comes from power plants and fossil fuels burned by cars and other vehicles. Coal Coal is a solid fossil fuel formed underground from buried and decayed plant material. As shown below, heat and pressure determine the type of coal formed. The hardest coal makes the best energy source. It burns hotter and much cleaner than softer coals. At one time, coal was the main source of energy in the United States. 1 2 3 4 Swamp plants decay Sediments bury the Over millions of years, It takes the longest time and are compressed peat, and rising pressure increasing pressure and and the greatest heat to form peat. and heat change it into heat form harder coal. and pressure to form soft coal. the hardest coal. The world’s largest coal deposits are in the United States, Russia, and China. People use surface mining and deep mining to obtain coal. In surface mines, overlying rock is stripped away to expose the coal. In deep mines, miners must go underground to dig out the coal. Most of the world’s coal is used to fuel power plants and to run factories that produce steel and cement. When burned as a fuel, however, coal produces byproducts that pollute air and water. Also, surface mining can destroy entire landscapes. Coal dust in deep mines damages miners’ lungs. Yet reducing pollution, restoring landscapes, and protecting miners cost millions of dollars. Society faces a difficult choice—keep the cost of energy low or raise the price to protect the environment and human health. check your reading What is the main use of coal? Chapter 5: Natural Resources 151 AB ¡ ¢ £ ¥ ¦ § Oil and Natural Gas reading tip Most oil and natural gas are trapped underground in porous rock. Non- is a Latin prefix mean- Heat and pressure can push the oil and natural gas upward until they ing “not.” Porous rock is reach a layer of nonporous rock, where they collect. As shown in the full of tiny cracks or holes. Therefore, nonporous rock illustration below, wells can be drilled through the nonporous rock to is rock that does not have bring the oil and natural gas to the surface.